Appendix 3: Cherished Sins

Sin, any sin, unrepentantly cherished in the heart is extraordinarily dangerous. The one who cherishes any known sin or knowingly refuses to repent of and fight against all known sin can have no assurance of salvation. This is the common teaching of nearly all good Bible commentators, though most do not expound on the matter at length. However, Puritan preacher Richard Alleine did expound on this at length throughout his book, The Vindication of Piety,^X and he is more emphatic than most:

A Christian not only accepts the promises of the Gospel as good and comfortable words, but can heartily write “Good is the Word of the Lord” on every precept. He likes his duties as well as his privileges, his work as well as his reward. This heart-acceptance is set forth in expressions regarding a willing mind, a ready mind, and an eager mind. And as his heart is toward his work, so it is for any work to which the Lord calls it. He has respect for all the commandments. He would not wish to be without one leaf, no, not one line of the whole Word of God. He is ready for every good work. He would not wish one duty lifted from him of all that God requires. He would not have one sin allowed to him of all that God forbids. He who says concerning any one word in the whole will of God, “This I must have struck out or be dispensed with before I can be a Christian,” is one whose heart is not upright. He who wishes to have any one sin to be no sin, any one duty to be no duty, any one sin to be allowed to him, or any duty to be lifted from him is no Christian.⁷⁹

“‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31–32). In light of this, the analogy of marriage appears frequently in Scripture and Bible commentaries with respect to Christ and His universal Church. Commentators also use marriage as an analogy for a believer’s mystical union with Christ “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:24). So, with respect to an unrepentantly cherished sin, consider what would happen in a marriage if the husband brought home a prostitute with whom to spend the night, right past his wife, even just once a year?

There was one of Jesus’s disciples who cherished a hidden sin. This hidden sin showed the condition of his heart; a horrible condition that was openly displayed near the end of his life: “But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?’ He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it” (John 12:4–6). By his habitual, cherished sin, Judas effectively rejected the Lord Jesus, Who dismissed him; thus Judas left himself open to another master. “Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘What you are going to do, do quickly’” (John 13:27 ESV).

It is important to realize that, while a particular cherished sin may not, in itself, be as heinous as some other sins, both what that cherished sin reveals about the heart that cherishes it and its corrosive effect on the heart make it far more dangerous than may outwardly appear.

79 From a translation into contemporary English at https://beforgiven.info/TranslatedWorks/vin/vindicationpiety.pdf, p. 83, (accessed March, 7, 2020). These appear to be overly strong and severe statements, but there is an excellent reason why they are true: God is innately and essentially perfect and holy in His being. His law is not an arbitrary choice, but is a reflection of His holy character and very being. If He were less than perfect and holy, He would be something other than God, or in the context of the present discussion, an idol of one’s imagination. A believer may indeed struggle with interpretations and applications of God’s Word, and he will often find putting off sins and accepting duties to be difficult. But the believer is a bondslave (δοῦλοσ [doulos]) of Christ, and, perhaps after a struggle with his own sinful desires, will thus willingly submit his will to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Such struggles need not rise to the level of wishing God would change His mind about His Word. Still, Alleine perhaps might have better said something like, “He who unrepentantly wishes to have any one sin…” Also, it should be noted that some new believers may not live long enough to reach this level of sanctification, such as the thief on the cross.